Beating Galway at Pearse Stadium in March was a huge boost for Limerick

Morrissey revealed: “It was a huge game for us in that it gave us the belief we could compete with the very best.

“Since then we’ve been looking for incremental improvements each time.”

The manner of the victory also gave them massive ­confidence that they will carry into the semi-final.

Morrissey said: “Any team we go out against, we believe we can beat them, so going up against Cork, we’ll believe we can beat them.

“They’re a great team but there won’t be much in it on the day. I’m looking forward to it already.”

When they met in the Munster SHC round-robin series, the sides played out a thrilling 1-25 to 0-28 draw at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, although the visitors were reduced to 14 men early on when Aaron Gillane was sent off.

But with a spot in the provincial final up for grabs, the Treaty were beaten 0-26 to 0-15 by Clare in Ennis.

Limerick looked dead on their feet. It was their third match in 15 days and Morrissey believes they were mentally drained.

He said: “I know some people said it was our third week in a row, but I think that’s more of a mental thing than a physical thing.

“We looked back on the video and we felt we didn’t play well, but we were still very much in that game with ten, 12 minutes to go, though they got the last seven points.

“There were things that we usually wouldn’t do — silly mistakes. Thankfully we got those out of our system and rectified it against Kilkenny.

“From the Clare game we’ve got slightly better with every match, so hopefully we can keep that going for Cork.

“Hopefully there won’t be a repeat.”

There is huge excitement on Shannonside ahead of the trip to Croker but Morrissey, 25, wants to keep a lid on it.

He warned: “Limerick fans are great but maybe we have a habit sometimes of getting ahead of ourselves.

“Before the Clare game people were talking about All-Ireland finals and we hadn’t even got to a Munster final at that stage.

“I’m sure they’ll be up in numbers for the semi-final, but Cork will be red-hot favourites for that.

“They’re unbeaten, they’ve won three Munster Championships in five years, but we’ll give it our best shot.

“We’ll leave it all out there, we can’t do any more.”

This Limerick team trust each other and it showed on Sunday when they were backed into a corner.

When Hogan hit the net to put give Kilkenny that 1-21 to 0-22 lead, nobody panicked.

They kept fighting, and Morrissey’s younger brother Tom ran 60 yards and put over a peach of a point to settle his side.

From there, they closed the game out in style.

And Limerick’s star man on the day beamed at their new resolve.

He said: “Thankfully a few balls fell into my hand and I didn’t do too badly, I was delighted.